Let’s address men’s underutilization of HIV services

SUMMARY: If the fast-track approach to end the AIDS epidemic is to be successful, the roles and responsibilities of men in the AIDS response need to be tabled.

t is ten years since Allen (not real names) lost her husband to HIV/AIDS.

But she always refers to his death as suicidal. Reason? Because much as he knew they were HIV positive, he vehemently refused to enroll on treatment. 

Allen, on the other hand, took courage, accepted the sour fate and started drugs; adhered to her treatment, and as I write, her viral load is undetectable!

With the inception of Anti Retrial Viral Drugs, HIV is no more a death sentence.

The 33-year-old even got married to another man with whom she bore an HIV free baby, thanks to Elimination of Mother to Child Transmission (EMCT)

Allen’s husband adds a figure to the huge list of men who prematurely succumb to HIV/AIDS related diseases because of their low uptake of test, treatment, and adherence to drugs.

At a micro level, when I look at Kitovu Mobile AIDS Organization (Kitovu Mobile) 2018 ARV adherence data, 150 adult women had good adherence compared to the 80 men.

This will still be reflected in low Viral Load Suppression (VLS) prevalence. VLS is defined as, literally, suppressing or reducing the function and replication of a virus; this stems from good drug adherence

Nationally, the prevalence of VLS among all HIV-positive adults aged 15 to 64 in Uganda is 59.6%: 62.9% among females and 53.6% among males, as indicated in the Uganda Population-Based HIV Impact Assessment (UPHIA), a household-based national survey that was conducted from August 2016 to March 2017 to assess the progress of Uganda’s national HIV response.

UPHIA offered household-based HIV counseling and testing. The ill fate of men’s low uptake is seen in high HIV/AID mortalities, where more men succumb to HIV related deaths compared to women as disclosed by Uganda Aids Commission.

This makes Uganda lose productive labour force, of which is not easily replaced like medical doctors

Dr Steven Watiti, an HIV/AIDS activist noted that it hurts seeing a doctor succumbing to AIDS because he refused to test, or take drugs consistently yet he knows that the country has a chronic shortage of Doctors.

It also quickens families’ vulnerability after death of bread winners. This robes children of their right to education and other basic needs.

Some orphans most especially in Masaka are fortunate that Kitovu Mobile provides school fees and helps many realise their dreams, but majority have their dreams shuttered, storming streets for survival as the girls chose to engage in commercial sex and early marriages which exposes them to HIV risks.

Thus, as we mark and commemorate International Women’s Day, men need to  celebrate women for pretty a lot of things. 

I must say, celebrating women is not enough, men should emulate them so as to fight a winnable battle against HIV/AIDS, a scourge bruising our social and economic circles for four decades now.

Let us test for HIV as early and regularly as possible other than shunning it in the guise of being busy and instead choose to depend on our spouses’ results.

If the woman is negative, men should not automatically consider ourselves negative; forgetting scenarios of HIV discordant couples.

According to World Health Organisation, discordant couples are those where one partner is HIV-infected and the other is not, where a couple is defined as two persons in an ongoing sexual relationship and each of these persons is referred to as a “partner” in the relationship.

So, without testing you can not know your are HIV status so as to start drugs or continue protecting yourself, depending on the results.

Moses Muwulya is a Health journalist, communications Officer for Kitovu Mobile A medical and comunity empowerment Organisation under Masaka Diocese. 

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